New Irrational Fears--what to do?
Hi All,
I'm new to this forum; I hope someone can help. I have a 10-year-old female shiba inu (Tai) who has just recently became fearful of things that didn't used to bother her. The first was storms, which I figure isn't uncommon for dogs. But then she got scared of any flash of light that reminds her of lightening, including headlights or siren lights, etc. There's a school bus that passes my house every morning and it has a flashing light on top. Tai now wakes up at about 5 a.m. and WAITS for the bus to come by, whining and shaking and panting as she waits. Nothing I do seems to help...and I stupidly tried consoling her the first few times so now she expects me to get up and pet her during her panic attack! I can't seem to break her of the habit. And she's even starting to fear the SOUND of the bus (and so the sound of other trucks, etc.) I'm afraid she's going to give herself a heart attack one of these nights.
Anyone dealt with fears like this and have suggestions of how to break the pattern? (I can't block the light--it flashes on our walls from outside even with shades closed, etc., and of course the sound of traffic, etc., isn't going away.)
Thanks!
Comments
Hi jholland - Welcome to the forum!
What you are describing is all to familiar to me. Maui, our 4 year old male Shiba, has really bad anxiety and fear issues. He too is afraid of storms and has chained events together that he thinks always happen during storms. For us it's the restarting or beeping of my PC or the click of my power-conditioning units - all these things would happen when a bad thunder storm knocked the power out. That's just a few issues Maui has become fearful of.
We have had many behaviorist come to visit him - we have even had him on anxiety meds.. I can tell you the only thing that helps is exercise. The dog whisperer would be smug if he read this but we tried so many things and the only thing that seems to really help Maui with his fear issues is several walks a day and totally ignoring the behaviors we don't want to last. I'm not saying he is 100% better w/ this regiment, but it has greatly improved our lives.
Another thing that has helped is D.A.P. plug-in, we keep them in the areas he spends the most time. It seems to calm him down a bit. The problem with those is it's like a drug, once you get them and start you are stuck replacing them... at $10 a piece every month or so it really kinda adds up.
I hope that helps -I know you probably wanted like one thing you could do to fix it (like we wanted), but there is really nothing you can do but get the dog lots of exercise and ignore the issues. That's the only things we have found that actually help to dissipate the problem.
Is there any chance you can have Tai sleep in a crate? Then cover the crate with a blanket so the lights cannot set her off, possibly have her in a room with a bit of music playing to cover the sounds of the bus also.
Also, do your best to not console Tai to much. Too much petting and attention will just reinforce the bad behavior, as you are praising it.
We have tried to give Maui a safe place to hide but he seems to prefer to be outside - I mean it could be a total tornado outside and if we took him out he would not be stressed anymore. Seems it's a flight or fight type of thing - I think he feels trapped and just shuts down.
He has been super stressed since the move. :c(